D is for Dossier Day!!: A photo adventure!

It was been a wonderful adoption week!  On Tuesday someone from the USCIS said that they would expedite our immigration approval for adoption and then on Wednesday they wrote me back to say that they had completed processing our application. We were approved!

I was so excited, I emailed my agency to say I was approved and that I just needed to wait for the notice to come in the mail.  Within 10 min I got a phone call from them saying, you don't need to wait just print off the copy they emailed you!!  This approval was the last thing I needed before I could submit my dossier (which is the last step before we get our first travel dates.)  My agency and i had been working over the last 2 weeks to make sure I had everything else gathered and notarized (thank you Sarah!!).  So last night Sarah notarized the cover sheet for the immigration approval and I organized everything I needed to get apostiled.  It kind of felt like the night before the first day of school...I packed Ishmael's diaper bag and backpack and paper clipped all my papers together.  Checking a few times to make sure I had everything!

But as excited as I was the night before, i didn't sleep well so Ishmael and I got off to a late start.  We had a crazy day, which I documented with photos, but NOTHING could waylay my joy and excitement in getting to get this documents sent!

Before we left I went upstairs and had Deb take a picture of Ishmael and I, all ready to go with our documents in hand.

Then we drove to the capital building, so we could visit the notary office where they would appostile our documents (basically put an official state of nebraska seal on them).  We circled quite a few times before we got a parking spot.  Here Ishmael is, we are happy and parked.

Here is Ishmael climbing up the steps to the capital building.

Here is another view of the building so you can see the sower on top!

Once inside, we ran into our friend Darren, which was a huge blessing, he played with Ishmael while I was told 2 of my documents would not work :(.  But like I said, NOTHING could stop by joy or excitement of being at the point of mailing these documents!!!  The woman was really nice and helpful, she wasn't as hopeful as I was that EVERYTHING was going to work out just fine and I was going to mail off my documents today!  She told me that if she couldn't get ahold of the right person, I might have to wait until Feb 2, to which I said, I can't do that and low and behold, she made a phone call to the county clerks office and the person she needed was there!  So Ishmael and I left her with our documents and walked over to the state building to get a replacement license for my home-study agency.  

This counter was just Ishmael's height!  (At the department of Health and Human services, this woman is calling the person that needs to come help us.)  So we hung out in the hall and waited...and took some photos and played with toys.  Ishmael did a great job.  We even ran into an old friend of mine from junior high! (what a fun day!)

 
















With the new document in hand we headed out of the state building to walk back to the capital.  We walked past the scooters and I bought Ishmael a chocolate milk.  I told him we couldn't have it until we got back to the capital.  
We had fun walking and even worked on counting, by

counting the steps we took up all the flights of stairs!  Once we walked inside Ishmael asked for his "bilk" what a smart boy, he didn't forget for a second!  I made a wrong turn and we ended up in the touristy part of the capital so I let Ishmael walk around drinking his Milk and i took some photos.

Then we went back to the notary office.  I was very happy that the woman had not left for lunch as it was close to 1230.  We gave her our new form and I paid for all the apostles. (I feel blessed apostiles in our state are only 10.00 per item...I have heard some states can be almost 50!)

Ishmael was very tired of waiting....he took off his boots and his socks and was starting to run around :)

But then she gave me my documents, here they are, I starting laying them out on the counter but ran out of space...so I just piled the rest on top.

I got Ishmael to put on all his clothes and his coat and backpack, again, and we started to walk out.  I treated us to a lunch in the capital cafeteria.  (I apologize that I didn't get a picture of that.  We split the special which was fried chicken (boneless) mashed potatoes and corn.  MMM.)  Next we went to Office Max to fed-ex the "dossier" to my agency, where they will add some of their own documents and send it off to Bulgaria!

Ishmael got bored and played by the carts!

And here it is the culmination of months and months of paperwork, meetings, notarizing, doctors visits, employer references, personal references, fingerprints, fingerprints, more fingerprints, background check, another background check, another copy of the same background check, visiting the court house, the state building, immigration services and the capital and here I am holding it, the holy grail, the DOSSIER!!!!!!